


How to putte Questiones to the Dark and understand its Answeres

by cribbins



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell & Related Fandoms, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-26
Updated: 2015-11-26
Packaged: 2018-05-03 10:17:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5286893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cribbins/pseuds/cribbins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Could a magician kill a man by magic?”<br/>“I suppose a magician might - but a gentleman never could.”<br/>At first Grant thought that this must be some sort of rebuke, but then, no - of course not. How could he possibly know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Magic is not respectable, sir

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt "Strange is still a magician, only to discover that Grant can do very small, sudden acts of magic he can't really control. Maybe they try to harness it, supress it, it comes out suddenly during a battle? Even angst, idk"

 

 

> _I gave magic to England, a valuable inheritance_
> 
> _But Englishmen have despised my gift_

 

It was not a little thing, when it first happened. It was rather a moment of some importance. He was pinned up against a tree, a grubby hand on his neck and French being barked at full volume into his face.

 

“L'espion de Wellington! Je te tiens, saligaud!”

 

He found it profoundly disagreeable to be referred to as a spy - he was an officer after all, and he found it doubly disagreeable to be called it in French. But most disagreeable of all at this moment were the two hands that were now extremely persistently squeezing about his neck, in a fashion designed to prevent him from living very much longer.

 

Grant was not observing this all idly but was, at the time, grasping at the man’s arms, his shoulders - he could not reach the man’s face or neck, somewhere he could do real damage. The Frenchman’s reach was too long for that.

 

And while he flailed for purchase, fingernails digging into blue wool, and while his foot kicked out at the Gendarme’s knee, hoping to bring him off balance, his mind raced through the options he had at his disposal - to whit, none. He was alone, and far behind enemy lines. There would be no rescue for him here and the Gendarme very clearly meant to end him now and make a clean job of it rather than bring him in for questioning.

 

There was - something - though, at the back of his mind, almost an itch, or no, rather, the feeling of seeing a dance for the first time and realising that one knew all of the steps. It was a very difficult thing to describe, it was fanciful, and yet, he was not awash with alternatives, and it would not hurt to try. His vision was going black at the edges.

 

He did not wish to be choked. He very much wished for the Gendarme to choke however.

 

He very much wished it.

 

He followed the steps within his head. It was a series of sensations, vivid images, a certain amount of bloody will. The wind picked up and the leafy trees surrounding them rattled into a protesting, deafening hiss. The Gendarme began to turn red in the face and then, yes, took one hand away from Grant’s neck and reached for his own. Off balance now, he was subjected to another kick to his thigh which made him stagger backwards, releasing his other hand from Grant’s neck. The air whistled into Grant’s lungs. It was so utterly tempting to focus solely on the business of breathing, a luxury he had sorely missed. But he knew he could not break his concentration from the Gendarme.

 

The Gendarme’s throat.

 

The Gendarme’s throat closing.

 

The Gendarme took a good deal too long to die. If Grant had the strength he would have walked up to him and ran him through the heart, ended the whole thing in a more soldierly and natural fashion. This manner of death felt a very much more intimate than even killing someone using one’s hands. He did not forget this.

 

 

 

* * *

 

“Could a magician kill a man by magic?”

 

“I suppose a magician might - but a gentleman never could.”

 

At first Grant thought that this must be some sort of rebuke, but then, no - of course not. How could he possibly know.

 

 

 

* * *

 

“Your Grace, with all respect you cannot seriously be considering using him?”

 

“And why not? I feel I am obliged to use whatever resource I have at my disposal to win this war, Mr Strange included. If he can build these roads, then it would make our lives a good deal easier.”

 

“It is magic, sir. Spells. The purview of yellow curtain conjurers and...hedge witches, not the English Army.”

 

At this Wellington turned on him. “Major Grant, if the very Devil himself came up through the ground, just there by our dear Chaplain’s feet, and proffered his own expertise to aide us in conquering the French then I would in all seriousness consider the offer.”

 

A weary sigh emanated from the Chaplain. “Sir,” he said, not a tone of outrage; it seemed to have gone some way beyond that and now merely sounded rather tired.

 

Wellington looked quickly over at him. “Well I would.”

 

 

* * *

 

“And how does one come to it, then?”

 

“Hmm?” Strange looked up from his maps, ringed by a harem of impressive-looking and aged books.

 

“Magicianship. How does one come to it in this day and age?” He paused for a second. “As a gentleman, that is?”

 

“Ah.” Strange fidgeted with the pen between his fingers while he considered the question, as if he was trying to remember exactly how he had come about it. “I met a man under a hedge, who told me I was to be one. He sold me some spells.” Strange leant back on his chair. “When I tried one of the spells on a whim I found I rather had the knack for it.”

 

Grant gave him a long, penetrating look, and Strange had the good grace to shift uncomfortably under it. Eventually, he said, “I was trying to impress a woman,” which satisfied Grant more as it had the ring of truth about it.

 

He, for his own part, snorted in amusement. “And did that work?”

 

Strange’s expression cooled. “Well, she married me, so I imagine it went tolerably.” He turned back to his map and his books, working upon the problem of the roads.

 

“And,” for Grant was not done with him yet, “how does one reconcile it? Being both a Gentleman and a practical magician?”

 

Strange did not do him the respect of turning to him to answer him this time, but addressed the map instead. His shoulders shrugged. “I am a gentleman, and I am a magician. That is how I reconcile it.”

 

This was useless, if the man was going to speak in riddles then he would not embarrass himself any further by stooping to talk to him. He would just have to amuse himself by watching him fail at a discrete distance.

 

 

* * *

 

The roads were, annoyingly, rather good. Though they had a habit of disappearing before all of the regiments had quite finished with them but they were better than nothing, which was enough for The Duke of Wellington.

 

If that was all Strange was used for, these limited, logistical uses of magic, that would have been all well. Grant would have been content to look the other way and not voice his distaste any longer, but of course His Grace would not have this. He had a disposition to push the men under his command to their very limits, a vexatious thing but this was why Wellington was winning the war. Once he had it in his head that things could be made to appear and disappear by magic, or moved from one place to another, he went about to test the very reaches of this.

 

 

* * *

 

“A fiery sword!” Cried one of the officers, joined by many approving cries and banging of cups upon the table.

 

“Yes, fiery swords all round, Merlin!” De Lancey agreed. “Let us see the French not soil their smallclothes at the sight of a fine regiment of English officers bearing down on them with blazing weaponry like something out of Revelations!”

 

It had become one of their most favourite drinking games, to ask Strange for increasingly outlandish acts of magic and watch him squirm uncomfortably in his seat as if they were serious requests.

 

“Ah,” said Strange, and wriggled amusingly in his chair. “No I’m afraid that would fall rather outside the reach of modern magic, that is, respectable…”

 

“Nothing more respectable than me lopping off the head of Napoleon like the Archangel Michael, is there?”

 

Really now, they were going much too far. If Grant was a better man he would pity Strange’s acute awkwardness, but he was not, and he enjoyed it.

 

“It is a fine image, surely, but…”

 

Why did he just not say that he could not and be done with it? “Merlin, if you cannot do the magic then just say so,” said Grant, in more dour tones than he intended. Strange shot him a look and bristled.

 

“It is not a case of it not being possible. In fact, there is something similar to have said to have been done by Thomas of Dundale in 1196, he…”

 

“Yes yes, Merlin, alright…” Grant waved a hand to call him off. Really, sometimes it was like talking to a schoolboy in short trousers. He had the same naivete, the same bluster, full of pedantic facts upon the object of his obsession. He was as Grant was at the age of ten. It would not do for a full grown man.

 

Having said that, he did not drink as a ten year old did. A rather impressive amount of brandy had disappeared down Strange, no, wait, _Merlin_ , during the course of the evening, and Grant could not help be a little surprised at the lack of impression it had made on him so far. He could be one of those men who became drunk from the ground up, so their head was relatively sober and clear while their legs were quite out of control. Disappointingly Merlin quashed this theory by standing up from the table and rudely refusing to fall straight back down again.

 

It appeared that the pleasure of their company had worn rather thin on the magician. “I shall bid you Gentlemen a good evening.” Strange turned and made his way into the courtyard, followed out by a general unspecific murmur of acknowledgements from the remaining officers, and at least one intelligible “Good evening, Sir,” which turned out to have been produced by De Lancey.

 

Grant shot De Lancey a cool, if rather unfocused, glare. De Lancey, feeling the holes being burnt into the side of his head, looked at him. “And what is that for?” He asked.

 

“One would actually think that you liked him.” Grant shot.

 

“And what of it?” De Lancey helped himself to some more of Merlin’s brandy.

 

“He is...a conjurer.” This erupted laughs from around the table. “A trickster.” More laughter.

 

“Oh my,” said Hadley-Bright from across the table, “you have rather taken against him, haven’t you?”

 

“You honestly still think he’s a charlatan?” Asked De Lancey

 

“Well I’d be hard pressed to think that. I’ve seen him make and unmake the roads, yes, and I’ve seen him move the rivers. It is not that.” He took another sip from his cup. Brandy was brandy, even if it was provided by Strange.

 

“Then what in devil’s name is it?” De Lancey looked at him in a quizzical way he did not much care for.

 

“I don’t like magic.” This brought forth some more chuckles, and an ‘I am shocked!’ from Hadley-Bright in mocking tones. “I do not trust it. We got along perfectly well without it before and we can continue to do so.”

 

“Come now!” Whyte chided him. “You enjoyed the use of the road our Merlin created as much as much as anyone else here did.”

 

Grant slammed down his cup. “What exactly has he done today, outside of saving our feet from some mild discomfort? When that man,” he pointed vaguely out into the darkness that Strange had disappeared into, “proves he is worth even one of our infantrymen then we can have this conversation again. Until then…” Here he trailed into a sullen silence, while all about him the good mood stubbornly persisted.

 

 

* * *

 

It was unfair to make Strange roll so many boulders up mountains to prove himself (metaphorically, though sometimes literally), and to still perversely withhold his approval. Truly it seemed to drive Strange mad that he could not do one thing that would please Grant, though why Strange was so worried about what one officer thought when The Duke of Wellington himself was starting to regard him as indispensible was beyond him.

 

But withhold approval he did. It was not Strange’s person that he took against, he was forced to admit. He had many more irritating men in his association. It was his magic which coloured Grant’s whole assessment of him. He knew. He knew more than most anybody, what magic was, and what it could do. It could not be trusted, and neither, by logical extension he reasoned, could Strange.

 

It took Strange saving all their lives in the forest, covering them with a magical mist, before Grant had a sit down with himself and admitted that maybe he was being really rather harsh.

 

Magic was dangerous, yes, but in the right hands perhaps it could do a great deal of good. He was not those right hands, obviously, but perhaps Strange was.

 

Thus, he decided to tentatively extend friendship to Strange. Partially to make amends for his previous cool attitude, partly gratitude. Partly because, at that moment, Strange seemed so very alone.

  
This was rather a trick in and of itself, as if Strange had suddenly whipped away an elaborate enchanted cloak and revealed himself to be, despite everything, a rather ordinary-looking Shropshire gentleman in his early thirties. He looked terribly fragile.


	2. A gentleman could not do magic

In the town in which Grant had grown up, a remote northern outpost even by Scottish standards, they had luxuriated in the privilege not one but two magical persons. There was the yellow-curtain conjurer who arrived on market days and dispensed fortunes to cocky young men and love potions to shyer young women. Then they had the witch that lived outside the village, across the valley. It was to the witch that these young women would go once the love potions had done their work and the women found themselves in an unfortunate way. [1]

 

This was a recurring scandal, one which tarnished the reputations of the conjurer, the witch and whichever girl in question it was this season. It was often the talk amongst his parents and their associates. Being the youngest of eight children, young Colquhoun benefited from the typical gift of such children of being quite invisible to the adults about him and so able to listen in on many of these conversations. If Grant was an introspective sort of man he would have reflected on these times as perhaps informative to his later success as an Exploring Officer in the English Army, but he was not an introspective sort of man.

 

“Honestly, we cannot run him out of town; it is as good as admitting that we believe his ridiculous little potions work.”

 

“It does not matter that they work, what matters is that they believe that they work.”

 

“And if we cast him out, what will they do other than believe even more, and chase after him all the harder?”

 

“Fine...But what of that old crone? She’s certainly a good deal more efficacious.”

 

“Yes. Yes indeed.”

 

He never did ask what had happened to the hedge witch, but by the time he was a young man of fourteen and challenging the conjuror to tell him his fortune in the town square on market days, he was aware that she was not talked of anymore, either as a problem or as a solution.

 

This is the manner in which he learnt early and learnt often that magic was the refuge of conmen and the morally vacuous. There was something deviant about it. Something unsaid and unwholesome.

 

His own captivation with the Raven King, then, was held closely to his chest. He revelled in the tales of John Uskglass, roaming and conquering through the different worlds. They held a - a morbid fascination to him. But it was not for polite company.

 

He would channel this enthusiasm, eventually, into more warlike pursuits. Uskglass had been a great warrior as well, had he not? Combat was a much more wholesome boyhood interest.

 

* * *

 

A small crowd of six of them had gathered to watch Strange attempt to raise the dead. He did not know if they had intuitively decided that they should outnumber the three Neapolitans, but in the end Grant was grateful that they had.

 

He was equally grateful that there were a few men between himself and Strange, for when Strange started doing the magic, the most queer sensation flooded through him, and he found that the people standing in front of him provided just enough of a screen. He felt as if a door had opened in his head and all sorts of things were rushing in. The air already smelt very heavily of death; it now took on the smell of dying bonfires and sharp winter evening, carried on a breeze that came from no clear direction, no clear source. His balance very nearly gave out under his feet. The atmosphere was buzzing and fraught. He wondered if Strange felt this, but Strange looked very much in control of his faculties, though he had cut his palm and was busying himself at the present moment with dropping blood over the faces of the corpses.

 

He pressed his hands against his eyes, willing a clearer head, when everything became so very much worse. The very fabric of the windmill about them started to groan and flex, the mechanics turning with unnatural momentum. Grant felt almost drunk on it. He was rudely disrupted from this and back to himself by the ragged gasp of one of the corpses lurching into some kind of life.

 

He stumbled over the words while translating the corpses' answers for Wellington. His Neapolitan was good, it was not that which troubled him, but rather trying to keep his mind fully upon the task, and not chasing the whirls and eddies of magic that still flooded the room, and not looking at Strange, shuddering and horrified.

 

He had already mounted his horse and rode out of camp before he considered if anyone would see to Strange. It was a cowardly thing to do, he could admit that now.

 

* * *

 

Strange had managed to transform himself into a haunted figure in the handful of days that Grant has been absent; the hands holding the horse's reins would intermittently tremble, only to be balled into fists or shaken out, as if Strange could only play these off as muscle cramps then his remedies might have some effect.

 

“It is a good thing that you have done.” As the words left Grant’s mouth he could have kicked himself; they sounded as hollow and foolish as he had feared they would. Strange gave him a withering look. “Well…” conceded Grant, “You must not dwell on it.”

 

“I do not think...” the words came out rather croaking, “...that I am suited to warfare. This magic I am doing is not - it was not what I had intended, when I first came here.”

 

“Well you cannot be thinking of leaving us? I hardly think His Grace will even countenance you going, he has grown far too reliant on you being here.”

 

Strange appeared to think upon that for a while, swaying with the steady gait of his horse, the only sounds being the hooves on parched, dry Spanish earth, the murmur of the troops in the distance, and the birds singing their evening chorus. After a minute or so, Strange said, “And you?”

 

Grant shrugged. “Well I suppose I’ve gotten rather used to it as well.” He twitched a small smile at Strange, and was not entirely unsuccessful at rousing an answering one, though Strange’s perhaps lacked any heart in it.

 

* * *

 

It was a while before Grant found himself once again under enemy fire beside Strange. Strange had stopt being quite so alarmed at gunfire, at least enough to concentrate on his own work, which was currently to move a French encampment thirty miles to the east, far enough to prevent them from causing much trouble for the next few days. [2]

 

The French did not care to be whisked away by magic, and were shewing their opinions upon the subject by trying to shoot them dead before it could be attempted.

 

Grant loosed a shot at the French, who hid back behind their trees. “Any time now, Merlin!” he cried over his shoulder.

 

Strange stopt in the middle of an incantation. “What do you think _I'm doing_.”

 

Grant, and the rest of the platoon providing covering fire for Strange, huddled behind trees rather too slender for the task. There was a space of maybe fifty feet between the two opposing forces, and they were all pinned down into their positions by the musket shot that rang out across the forest floor between them. This did not much matter to the English; they merely had to hold the French at bay and wait for Strange to move them, but the French had a more desperate attitude about them - as they should, given the circumstances.

 

A shot rang out far too close to Grant; a musket-ball embedded itself into the tree not a foot away from his head. They needed some cover, or screen. His mind raced back to the day Strange had produced a mist to cover them. They needed something like that - something like -

 

A musket-ball hit the earth and threw up a great quantity of dried leaves and mulch from the forest floor.

 

\- Ah.

 

A wind picked up and whistled through the branches above their heads, the leaves rattled together into a pervasive din. He made one wild guess after another, merely going along with what it felt might be the next right thing to do, and each time he was rewarded with the feeling of something clicking into place. He had his eyes shut, his head bent forward and resting on the trunk of the tree he was crouching behind. When he opened his eyes leaves were now kicking up in eddies of wind. Stray leaves whipt at their faces.

 

“Merlin!” One of the sergeants cried, “Is this you?” Strange had his head bowed and eyes closed. His mouth moved silently in what Grant could only imagine were incantations. He was not in a position to respond.

 

Grant turned back to the leaves. He knew it was he who was doing this, not because he trusted at all his abilities in this arena, but it was unmistakeable. It was the sensation of magic being dragged out from somewhere deep within oneself, which left one feeling quite exposed and raw. Was this how Strange felt all the time? Was magic supposed to feel as if it were plucking away pieces of you?

 

They were, in any case, now quite hidden from the French - between them was rushing wind and dirt and leaves. The shots that rang through were blind and wild, until, they stopt. Strange sat down quite heavily, book falling into his lap. The sudden movement caused Grant to turn, thinking for a wild second he may have been hit. His concentration broke utterly from anything else and the leaves dropt to the floor as if they too had been shot out of the sky.

 

Strange was not shot. He was quite well, if a little pale and trembling. “Thirty miles to the east, was it not?” he asked. Grant looked back to the French, but of course they were not there.

 

* * *

 

Although Strange still reminded Grant of nothing so much as a schoolboy at times, it no longer vexed him as it once did. In fact he now found it to be rather endearing. What Grant had first characterised as naivete was more of an - an openness to the world. The bluster was in reality a self-possession that bordered on (and occasionally tipped into) arrogance. Really it was no wonder that a person such as this could have stumbled headfirst into practical magic in the modern age.

 

Strange and himself had fallen into a natural partnership, with Grant’s work as an Exploring Officer informing Strange’s work as Magician in Ordinary, and vice versa. Both gathered information about the enemy in their own way, but found they were, as a set, far more than the sum of their parts.

 

This being observed by others apart from himself, it was very quickly picked up upon and exploited by The Duke of Wellington, who had summoned Grant to his tent on the pretext of discussing Grant’s latest reconnaissance, and yet -

 

“I have heard that Merlin is feeling tired. But that is not very surprising, is it not? We are all tired to some degree or another.”

 

Grant cleared his throat. It was true that all of them were run ragged. “I have come to believe that Merlin’s is not - well - a natural exhaustion.”

 

Wellington looked up from his notes. “We are now calling it exhaustion, are we?”

 

“Yes, Your Grace, I think that we are.” He hesitated for a moment, and then continued. “It is not his physical or even his mental faculties that are being strained by the magic. It is more his…” He wavered a hand somewhere about his chest, searching for what he meant. He almost wanted to say soul but it was not quite correct.

 

Wellington stopt then, and lowered his pen. “I see, and you would recommend then that I would use him a little more sparingly?”

 

“If you would like him to see out the month, yes.” His words had leapt out of his mouth sharper than he would have cared. An unreadable look crossed Wellington’s face.

 

“Tell me, Grant, when Merlin first arrived here I remember that you were quite set against him. Now it seems that you have rather stept in to become his keeper. Have your opinions on magic changed so much?”

 

It was a question he had been asking himself of late. It should not have been that much of a shock, His Grace always had a way of looking at one as if he could see right through one. “I do not trust the magic, Your Grace, any more than I would trust a loaded gun.” He broke off the gaze that Wellington held him in, and observed his own boots. “I trust the man, though. Merlin does not always like to do the magic we set him. He seems to have the measure of it.”

 

When he looked up he found that Wellington was still looking intently at him. “As, it would seem, do you.” He finally looked away from Grant and returned to his own notes. “Dismissed, Major.”

 

Grant turned to leave. Indeed, he was pulling away the tent flap when Wellington asked, “Grant, have you ever considered taking up the practice of magic?” When Grant looked back at him, he still had his head buried in his notes.

 

Grant thought about the appropriate response, but settled upon, “No, Your Grace, I do not believe that I would care for it.”

 

Wellington nodded, and Grant left the tent.

 

Strange was the only magician which the English Army had, and, Grant supposed, he did not necessarily have to be. But perhaps Grant was overselling his own meagre skills. He had only ever performed magic twice, and both times under conditions of extreme peril. He could not depend upon himself to perform in in quite the same reliable fashion as Strange did.

 

Besides - he looked to Strange draining the last of his flask and staring into the fire - it did not look very appealing.

 

Strange saw him approach out of the darkness, and his mouth quirked up into a grin. “How went your reconnaissance?”

 

“Oh, you know,” Grant sat beside him and pulled out his own flask, “death-defying feats, daring escapes…”

 

“Ah, the usual, then?” Strange looked amused, but the hard light of the campfire did nothing to hide the sunkenness of his eyes.

  
“Yes, all quite boring really.” He took a swig from his flask and passed it to Strange. “I think we have earned ourselves some leave, don’t you think?”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Footnote 1: In truth the love potions did nothing; they were little more than wild herbs suspended in river water, but they gave the women the courage they needed to approach the object of their affection. It was a shame that the conjurer did not sell anything for the women to take the morning after they had taken the love potion, but then, that would have required a certain amount of sympathy, and that fell entirely within the realms of the hermitess witch on the other side of the valley.

Footnote 2: One of the officers earlier that day had asked if it was not possible that they could just drop the encampments into the sea, a notion which Strange paled at, before giving a nervous sort of laugh. Nobody joined him.

 

 

* * *

 


	3. All magicians are vagabonds

Lisbon had rather become a victim of its own success; there were quantities of passable red wine on offer, and though the British Army had built up something of a tolerance to it, it was nothing that could not be conquered with liberal applications of more red wine.

 

Strange, in particular, drank as if it was a task of great importance. A few days into leave, he turned to Grant and said, as something of a non-sequitur, “I find I sleep a lot better when I am in the lines. It is odd...”

 

Grant nodded. “It is odd, to be sure. And yet it is a common complaint.”

 

Grant worried. He worried to a distracting degree about Strange. He could clearly remember the feeling of doing magic, how it was pulled out of himself, and he could not help picturing Strange as hollow - quite emptied out by the last few months in the lines. The tremors in his hands were intermittent, but they were enough.

 

Grant’s skills in keeping fellow soldiers on an even keel would occasionally involve talking, but only when absolutely necessary and unavoidable. Most of the time he would resort to the prescription of whatever drink was handy, which was what they were doing presently.

 

In fact, this undertaking had progressed to such a degree that they were actually speaking of ‘home’ in a hazy sort of wistfulness. Rather, they were speaking of London - the city they had both adopted and both left for the Peninsula. It would take several bottles more before they began to speak of ‘home’ as the place in which they had grown up, and the rather thorny subject of childhood which inevitably accompanied it.

 

“I wonder what on earth I could bring home with me, to remember this place. I can’t think that there are many things for sale here that I could not get in London, or that I would not care to have in my house.”

 

“Mmh.” Grant looked about him. They were sat outside a little cafe in the centre of Lisbon, the better to watch the world go by. The sun had disappeared behind the rooftops and the buildings had taken on its blueish twilight hue, dotted here and there by the orange flare of a lantern or a candle. “You know for all their success the East India Company have rather taken the mystery out of the world haven’t they?”

 

“Hmm...Well, of all the complaints that we have I might put that one somewhere near the bottom.” Strange was hunched over the table. Grant took a more languid posture, tipping back his chair so it rested on the back two legs. Strange looked up. “The stew was certainly a mystery though.”

 

Grant raised his eyebrows in confusion.

 

“Oh please don’t tell me you haven’t had the stew? With the eyeballs in it?” Strange looked down and muttered darkly, “amongst other things.”

 

“I can’t say I have ever had the pleasure.”

 

“Well that is hardly fair, is it? We will seek some out - tomorrow. You will not leave here without having sampled it.” Strange pointed a finger in what he probably imagined was resolve, but considering the context came across more as threat.

 

“I have enough to take home with me thank you, Merlin. I do not need any more culinary horror stories. A few scars and a passable knowledge of the Spanish languages shall do for a souvenir, which is more than I can say for you.”

 

Strange bristled at this. “I have picked up some..”

 

Grant cut him off. “A full working knowledge of all the local curse words does not a well-rounded vocabulary make. Besides, this is hardly the sort of thing that is likely to impress the wife.”

 

Strange raised an eyebrow as if he begged to differ.

 

“Ah!” Grant remembered with a triumphant thud of his glass upon the table. “And the dances, of course.”

 

This caused a grin to begin creeping its way across Strange’s face. “You dance?”

 

Grant shrugged. “Passibly. I have a great curiosity for all these folk dances, and I was lucky enough to find several young women kind enough to shew me the proper form.”

 

This caused Strange to make a rather ungraceful snort, which hardened Grant’s idea into determination. In an bid to prove his own honourable conduct and intentions to Strange, with the added benefit of possibly making Strange fall over, he stood from the table and yanked the other man to his feet.

 

“Now, I shall see to it that you have something of worth to take home to Mrs Strange which she can admit to in public quarters.” He had Strange by the arm and pulled him until they were standing a little away from the table opposite one another.

 

“Ah, but my wine…” Strange made a shuffling step back to the table, reaching for his glass. He was waylaid by Grant.

 

“Here, but learn this dance and I will be buying the wine for the rest of the evening.”

 

Strange paused to consider.

 

“If you can.” Said Grant.

 

Strange returned to his position stood in front of Grant. “Very well, and what charming rustic folk dance appropriate for polite company will we be learning today?”

 

Grant nodded decisively. “I shall teach you the Fandango.”

 

“The excuse me?”

 

Grant raised his hands into a grand sweeping gesture beside his head. “Fandango!”

 

It was the matter of a minute before Strange could be persuaded to concentrate on anything other than the hilarity of the name to the extent that he was able to begin learning the steps. It pleased Grant to see him laugh, however, so he found he did not very much mind.

 

He regained his composure enough to take the starting pose. Grant informed him that he would be taking the part of the lady for this particular turn, so he could observe the master (Grant) in action, and once he had the form they would switch. Strange gave a long and, indeed, unnecessarily exaggerated eye roll then shifted in his position. Grant gave him a questioning look.

 

“Is that it?”

 

“Is that what?”

 

“You pose.”

 

Strange looked down to observe the positioning of his limbs. “What of it?”

 

“Well you are meant to be a captivating Spanish maiden. Right now I imagine Copenhagen could do a better job of looking even mildly alluring.” [1]

 

There was a pause while an eyebrow slowly rose up Strange’s forehead. “Well if you would like me to strike a more equine pose, all you…”

 

“It was a comment on your lack of allure, sir, not on Copenhagen’s surfeit of it. Look, come about…” Grant took a step towards Strange and pulled his arms into a more pleasing contortion. He kicked Strange’s foot to beckon it backwards. Lastly he put a hand to the small of Strange’s back, causing Strange to jump a little at the contact, and twisted Strange’s hips to the side. He stood back and surveyed his handiwork, and then laughed.

 

Whether this put Strange at his ease, or merely gave him a chance to play to the gallery (always a favourite) he did not know, but Strange grinned, and then subtly shifted his stance so he was looking at Grant from a coquettishly ducked head, through his eyelashes. This, in turn, was enough to make Grant feel slightly awkward, and his laugh became more stilted, embarrassed.

 

“Good enough? Or are we still drawn to the charms of Copenhagen?”

 

“As a light relief from you, I’m considering it.” Grant raised his arms into his first position. “Shall we?”

 

Unfortunately he had chosen a dance with quite a lot of sharp turns and flamboyant twirls, which, combined with the cobbled paving of the square and the not inconsiderable inebriation of the evening lead with an almost depressing inevitability to Grant turning about, and finding the space that had previously been occupied by Strange to be quite empty.

 

“Merlin?”

 

He had been so used to Strange moving objects about by magical means that for a moment he thought that he had transported himself away out of embarrassment, until he looked down.

 

“Oh.”

 

Strange was attempting to stand, one hand rubbing the left of his rump which had presumably broken the fall. Given all the twirling in his very recent past, it looked as if Strange’s standing was not going to be successful, and he started lilting slightly. Grant caught him unsteadily under the arm and dragged him upright.

 

“Yes, well…” said Strange, back on his feet.

 

“Perhaps we should try again another time.” suggested Grant.

 

“Perhaps,” Strange looked about them, “somewhere with less of an audience.” Several locals were staring out at them dolefully from their various places of business. “There’s quite a lot of _this_ , isn’t there?” Strange pincered his hands together in what presumably was an attempt to mime the castanets as Grant had been doing, but the effect of which just made him look like an angered crustacean.

 

“That’s not quite…” Grant thought about it. Strange pincered his hands at Grant a few more times. “...never mind.”

 

* * *

 

“It hardly seems fair.”

 

“Hmm?” Grant had been walking beside Strange in amiable silence, back to their lodging houses, now that Strange had regained enough of an idea of balance to stay upright under his own power.

 

“Well,” said Strange in quiet tones, as if he were figuring the problem out to himself rather than addressing Grant, “if you are to teach me to perform one of the Peninsula dances, I should perhaps teach you some Peninsula magic. It only seems fair.”

 

A prickling heat spread across Grant’s face, which presumably had come from his stomach, which was now feeling quite cold. This was an overreaction. Strange had not suggested anything indecent.

 

“Nothing too complex,” Strange continued, “a parlour trick, something to entertain guests after dinner.” He turned to Grant, “Seeing visions in a basin of water? That is always very popular. Yes? What do you say?”

 

Grant did not know what he should say, and continued to walk back to his lodging house in a sort of constipated silence, Strange trailing beside him.

 

He did weigh up the possibility of letting Strange shew him how to perform some little piece of magic, but what then? What if he performed it, and - it would not do to be even countenanced, let alone risked.

 

“Grant?” Strange was stumbling alongside him, which caused Grant to realise that he had sped up his pace to a fair march. He stopt, and Strange very nearly collided into him, steadied by a hand on Grant’s shoulder. Grant did not look directly at Strange, but rather looked over his shoulder so his face could be seen from the corner of his vision.

 

“I thank you for the offer, Merlin. It was a well-meant gesture, but I.” He paused. “I do not believe it would be - suitable.”

 

Though he could not see Strange fully, he could perceive the stillness in which the other man held himself. Then, rather self-consciously, Strange removed his hand from Grant’s shoulder and crossed his arms. “I apologise, sir,” he said, in a tone which did not sound terribly apologetic. “I meant no offence.”

 

Grant squeezed shut his eyes and took a deep breath, maintaining his composure. “Perhaps we should discuss this in the morning.” He began walking again. “Maybe it is best if I take my leave of you here, Merlin. I will bid you a good night.”

  
A very little thing, to have caused such a fit of distemper. When he returned to his room he found his hands were virtually useless, fumbling at the key in the lock; in fact once he had the door shut behind him, in the quiet dark of the bedroom, he noted his whole body was in a fit of trembling. Magic had made a coward of him, he thought, and slumped against the closed door.

 

* * *

 

Footnote 1: Copenhagen here of course referring to the Duke of Wellington's horse.


	4. All magicians lie

Grant did not sleep. Perhaps it was too much to expect that he would sleep, given the unexpected spark of horror that had come upon him at Strange’s suggestion to teach him magic. He had, of course, experienced horror before; war was never short of ingenious new ways to disturb and disquiet. So it was probably more accurate to say that it was not the horror which kept him awake but the guilt of how he had reacted to it.

 

It is possible that this was why he was now on the streets of Lisbon in the early hours of the morning, navigating his way to Strange’s own lodging house. The magician was sure to be asleep by now, and all he would do was to vex the man further by waking him up, but he needed to heal any wounds between them before they had an opportunity to fester. He was sure he would not rest until he did.

 

He knocked on Strange’s door.

 

It did not take as long as he thought it might for it to open a crack. Strange was still dressed, though his shirt was untucked and his cravat undone. His hair also was in disarray but this was how it was in most circumstances so it did not deem much notice.

 

“What has happened?” Strange leant heavily on the doorframe and peeked his face through the gap in the door.

 

Grant stood a little stiffer. “Nothing, sir, only I wished to extend an apology for my behaviour.”

 

“It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?” Said Strange with flat intonation.

 

Grant felt the heat once again rush to his face. “Ah. Yes, my behaviour was…” His sentence trailed away from him.

 

Strange blinked. “No, that is - the hour was... I meant, couldn’t it have waited until morning?” He opened the door fully and gestured for Grant to step inside.

 

There was only one candle alight in the room, and the corners were lost to the gloom. There was a decanter of brandy sitting on the desk, next to the candle, almost finished. Strange had evidently continued the evening without him.

 

“Well at least I haven’t dragged you out of bed.” Grant stood in the middle of the room, turned to see Strange shutting the door behind them

 

“Yes, I’ve been thinking. In fact I was half considering committing some thoughts to paper.”

 

“Oh? What on?” How on earth could Strange write a paper in this state? Then again, perhaps all of his essays were written like this. Grant had not read any of them - he wouldn’t know.

 

“The reputation of English magic in the modern age.” Here Strange brushed past him and headed to the desk. His eyes flicked to Grant briefly as he passed. “With particular reference to the military.” He reached for the decanter and refilled his glass.

 

“Ah.” Said Grant.

 

“I never know if someone is going to be for me or against…”

 

“Surely that is just life, though?”

 

“Nobody really had that many strong opinions about me before I took up magic.” Strange swirled the brandy in his glass and regarded it. Standing in front of the desk he was lost in silhouette and Grant could not tell his expression. His voice was peculiarly flat. “When I first arrived in the Peninsula, you considered magic to be unseemly, I know. But. I had rather thought - hoped - that we had moved on from all that.”

 

Grant removed his gloves, if merely just to have something to do for a moment. He held them in his hands and twisted them about. “It is true, my feelings on the subject have become a deal more complicated.”

 

“How so?”

 

“I respect you Merlin, the man; and as such I am willing to tolerate the profession.”

 

This was, obviously, not the correct thing to say. Strange’s head tipped back as if the weight of it was all too much of a sudden. He was always given to rather over-egging the gestures when he was past a certain point in the evening. “Sir, it is not merely my profession. It is not as clear cut as that.” He stopt to consider his next words. “In truth I have difficulty, these days, telling where I end and the magic begins. I am afraid you must accept us or dismiss us all of a piece.”

 

Grant shook his head. This was wooly-headed mysticism that he would expect from the more Romantically-inclined theoretical magicians, whereas Strange had always been fairly matter of fact about it. “True,” he said, “it may be better to call it a calling rather than a profession, rather like the church…” This produced a snort from the dark - Strange had wandered to the corner of the room, out of the reach of the candlelight, “but you picked it up, and you can put it back down again. Don’t speak in such absolute terms.”

 

“Oh and how would you know anything about it?” Snapped the voice in the dark. “Why on earth am I here, in my own rooms in _the middle of the night_ , entertaining your _ignorant_ opinions about it?”

 

“Fine.” Said Grant. “I shall shew you how I know.” This was not what he had come here to do, but he was tired of tip-toeing about the subject, and he was tired of Strange misreading all his attempts to talk to him about it. He was tired, in general. Let Strange see exactly how much Grant knew on the subject.

 

He raised his hand and gestured towards the candle, and pictured the image of it being snuffed out by a strong draft. Something in the back of his mind clicked. It felt like remembering an old song, or cracking a stiff joint, something sliding into place.

 

The room about them groaned like the bow of a ship in a strong storm. The walls expanded and contracted about them. The candlelight flickered, momentarily, and then went out. They stood in the darkness. There was a thin, cold light from the half-waxed moon coming in through the window, reflecting off the tiles of Lisbon’s rooftops.

 

Grant felt like a dam beginning to break. He had used too much force for too little. It came out of him, organic and uncomfortable like a long length of ribbon being dragged out of his throat and he must pull and pull until it is all out. The objects on the desk began to shudder, all with a mind of their own. The snuffed candle tipped and thudded onto the floor. Sheafs of paper slid off one another and fluttered away.

 

Strange put a hand at Grant’s elbow, and gently pushed the outstretched hand down. And with that anchor Grant felt he was able to stop. He realised the way of it.

 

In the silence that followed, Grant guessed at all the many reactions he could expect from Strange.

 

“This...is extraordinary.”

 

None of these guesses were ‘delight’.

 

“This is wonderful!” Strange cried aloud in the dark. Grant hushed him. Strange clasped him by his arms, above the elbow. “You have performed magic!”

 

“Yes, Merlin, I have performed magic.” He said it in a slow, condescending tone that he had not used on Strange for a while.

 

“Is this the first time? Have there been other occasions? What have you been able to do?”

 

“It’s...not the first time. You see that I am able to speak a little about magic, then? It is not that I find it distasteful. I am...alarmed by it. It leaps out of me so easily and I don’t know what it is going to do.”

 

“It leaks.” Strange’s hair caught the weak light from the window and so Grant could see that he was nodding.

 

Grant scoffed. “It explodes, sir.”

 

The sheer volume of Strange’s voice dropped a fraction. “What else have you done.”

 

Grant took a breath. It was easier to say it, in the darkness, where he knew he didn’t have to see the full detail of Strange’s reaction. “The very first piece of magic I did was to kill a man. I choked off his throat with it.” In the moment of quiet, he added, “I had no other means of fighting back.”

 

“Well that is not so surprising.” Strange’s voice was measured. “In the middle of a war. Your magic, naturally, becomes more war-like. I have certainly found it to be the case.” Though Strange let go of one arm, he gave the other a squeeze, an expression of solidarity while his face was not visible. “My first piece of magic was a rather more tame affair, but then I performed it in a rectory in Cumberland, not on a battlefield, so it’s only to be expected.”

 

Strange stood next to Grant in the dark, a hand still gripped about Grant’s upper arm. It was a warm reassurance, the only part of Strange that he could sense, in the quiet. Strange spoke again. “I could teach you. I would be very happy to take you on as a pupil and teach you how to practice magic.”

 

Grant shook his head; an unseen gesture. “I would rather not. I have no great desire to go into it any further. Apart from to prove to you that I have some idea of the toll that the magic takes on you.”

 

“Grant you barely know what it is you speak of, not yet. The full shape and form of it. I am only really beginning to grasp myself. The _scale_ of it.” Strange gave a breathy laugh, still sounding amazed. “My god, man, all this time when I could have been tutoring you, all the things we could have achieved with two magicians on the front line.”

 

“And what I have done instead is so very little, is it?” He hoped that the tone of his voice was enough to sound a warning. “I had watched you, sir, these last months. You have not been comfortable with the spells you have been practicing and I can see well enough that they have done you not a damn bit of good. Can you blame a man for wanting to steer clear of it?”

 

Strange walked over to the desk and bent down. Grant could hear the fumble of him searching through the littered items on the floor, then he stood. “I have my share of horrors, Grant, that are very much of this world. Do not try to pin all of the blame on my magicianship.”

 

Some more fumbling across the desk, then the strike of flint against the firesteel. Strange lit the candle he had retrieved and carried it over. Held between them, it lit their faces from beneath, casting their faces in odd shadow. Strange’s eyes appeared dark and liquid, only a few pinpoints of light in them. The mouth worked for a moment, then smiled, cheerlessly. “I am being selfish.” The smile split into a grimace, and he bit his lower lip. The weak light made these movements of expression, just partly illuminated, almost hypnotic. “You are correct, I think. When I set out to practice magic with Norrell, we wanted to make it respectable again. We were only skating across the surface of English magic I suppose. Out here, I have glimpsed depths.” The smile returned, crooked and awkward. “Do you think you are the only one who is frightened of themselves?”

 

It took only a step before Grant was near enough to Strange to place a hand upon his shoulder. He squeezed, trying to convey some of the comforting solidity that Strange had imparted to him earlier. The light from the candle between them really was very unflattering. Strange’s face was all angles and grooves, like a gargoyle's. The eyes, though, were human, very dark. Out of impulse he moved the hand from Strange’s shoulder and cupped the side of Strange’s jaw, a thumb resting lightly on the cheek, where he could feel the muscles twitch under the skin.

 

The candle flame between them was flickering. The hand holding it had begun to tremble. The two of them were, Grant supposed, as startled and self-conscious as each other, and much too paralysed to do anything more.

 

“When…” Strange flicked his eyes down to the candle held in his shaking hand. “When one is performing a spell, one needs a signal for when the spell is to start. You do your incantation, and ask that when the candle is blown out, whatever it is you want to happen, happens.” He looked up again to Grant. “One needs a signal.” He repeated.

 

“What is it which you wish to happen?” Grant could barely hear himself speak.

 

Strange pulled the candle up to his face and blew it out in a fluid motion. He felt Strange’s jaw slip out of his hand, forwards, and the other man kissed him; rather softly, on the lips. He could not see anything, his eyes had yet to adjust to the dark. Thus all he could do was focus on the sensation of the hot, quiet pressure of Strange’s mouth upon his own.

 

There was something wild and weird about Strange, for all he protested otherwise. He could almost taste it upon him now, upon his breath, and the terrible low thrumming between them. Grant, for his part, had frozen still. Strange, after a second or so, pulled back.

 

“I… I don’t.” He has no idea if what has just happened was welcomed or not. If he had expected it or not. Different parts of his brain gave conflicting information and it was all very unhelpful.

 

There was a mortified silence emanating from Strange, just about visible from this distance. “I...apologise.” He said, his voice barely above a whisper. “It is. I have been feeling the loneliness of the situation rather keenly of late.”

 

Grant blinked. A thought occurred to him. “Is this a spell?”

 

“I do not think so. At least, it is not mine.”

 

Grant let out a ‘hmm’ of amusement, though it was not quite a laugh. “You see, not five minutes into having two magicians in the same room and things have already become exceedingly complicated.”

 

Strange ran a hand across his face. “I can assure you that nothing like that has ever happened with Norrell.” The thought of this made him smirk, briefly. “If you wish it, we will not speak of it again.”

 

“And which aspect of the evening are we referring to, exactly?”

 

He could feel Strange pull away then, and watched his silhouette return to the desk, a patch of slightly darker shadow against the wall. The candlestick was put down on the desk with a thud, followed by the clink of a glass being picked up in its place.

 

Grant took this as a dismissal. He felt his way to the door, and opened it, bringing some faint light in from the hall. He turned and could see Strange was indeed finishing the last of the brandy.

 

“I shall sleep on it.” Grant said to him. “I do not feel it would be wholly terrible, but I will sleep on it Merlin.” He went to leave, then thought again. “I sincerely hope that you knew that I always trusted you with magic, because you are a good man. And I believe you will stay true to that.”

 

“And if I do not?” Strange stood in his little patch of light thrown in from the hall, and looked at Grant from the corner of his eye.

 

“Then I shall be here to correct you.”


End file.
